Hastily produced to make its release in time for the American elections, presumably to either help ensure the US doesn’t go Republican again or just to capitalise on an audience with politics on its mind, Oliver Stone’s W. arrives here in the wake of Obama’s victory cigar-smoking. So now that he’s on his way out, exactly who was that “retarded cowboy”, what drove him, and how did he ever get to be President?

The film switches back and forth between his time as President and the years leading up to it. We see him go from lazy, cavorting, womanising, alcoholic drink-driver, through spiritual rebirth, and finally climbing the political ladder. It all pivots on his dysfunctional relationship with his “poppy” George Sr.

If we don’t need to see what Bush was doing during the controversial election/hijacking, why do we need to see him choking on that pretzel?

Significantly shorter in length than Stone’s previous political films Nixon and JFK, Steve Weisner’s script makes some curious decisions: if we don’t need to see what Bush was doing during the controversial election/hijacking, why do we need to see him choking on that pretzel? It’s also blindly trusting at times, presuming Bush’s faith in God and the existence of WMDs in Iraq to be entirely genuine convictions and in no way a disingenuous ploy for votes and support. Rather, the blame is placed on his advisors. In a standout scene we see Dick Cheney (ably played by Richard Dreyfus), presented here as something of a Lady Macbeth, slyly using fear to get permission to categorise simulated drowning and sleep-deprivation as interrogation techniques; after granting it Bush warns “But remember Dick, I’m the decider”, “Of course, sir” Cheney replies, knowing better. Less interesting are the scenes between father and son, with James Cromwell as George Sr. dramatically on key but on the surface annoyingly unlike the man. He did it all for dad’s acceptance, is the point, and while it isn’t inconceivable that a man who pronounces it “misunderestimate” just might be that simple, the reduction of his motives to base dad-issues feels simplistic. Far more credible is the repetition of scenes in which Bush sits in front of the TV and cheers his football team, which subtly suggests that he took from his youthful sporting days an ‘us v them’ mentality and imposed it on the political field at the cost of thousands of lives. As Stone knows from casting Colin Farrell as Alexander, biopics stand or fall on the strength of the lead performance, and here Josh Brolin, wisely going the essence-over-impersonation route, provides the films one undoubted success; it’s a human, rounded, non-judgemental performance left crying out for a film to equal it.